Costly Commitments “Under His Eye”: Reconceptualizing the Costly Signaling Theory of Religion

Abstract

Costly signaling theory of religion has been proposed to explain the evolutionary adaptiveness of religion in general and, specifically, its prosocial effects, including the relative longevity of religious communes vis-à-vis their secular counterparts. This article focuses on two crucial aspects of this relationship: the features and functions of signals and the mechanism through which signaling translates into enhanced prosociality. It identifies some of the key factors of the costliness of behavior and distinguishes between religious and secular signals, arguing that only the latter serve to broadcast commitment. The role of religious signals, instead, might be to stimulate the supernatural watching (“Under His Eye”) mechanism: enhancing supernatural sanctions beliefs and providing a setting in which implicit prosocial responses are triggered. The relative absence of this mechanism in secular communities may explain their shorter life spans. A link is thus established between the costly signaling and supernatural punishment theories of religious behavior.

Voluntary Costly Signals in Religious Communities: A Political Interpretation

“…Religious Costly Signals Religious (costly) signals are understood here as related specifically to the supernatural sphere, rather than as all kinds of signaling behavior in a religious community. Members of religious groups, just as of other social groups, may use a variety of actions -secular signals -to show their commitment or other desirable features: they work hard, endure austere living conditions, submit to authority, undergo humiliating initiation rituals, limit their contacts with the outside world (Potz 2022). The function of religious signals (participation in religious rituals, professions of faith and other actions inspired by religion), by contrast, is to communicate an individual's acceptance of the group's shared beliefs and, often, to indicate their relationship with the sacrum.…”